Some initial concerns

Marshall Kirkpatrick at Read/WriteWeb has several questions about OpenSocial Among others he is concerned about the "openness" of the APIs:

While most APIs tend to be read-only, the OpenSocial APIs might be capable only of allowing widgets to be published from one network to another. Will one network be able to pull in bio, friend and interest data from another? That's not being discussed at all.

The phrase Open Social implies portability of personal and social data. That would be exciting but there are entirely different protocols underway to deal with those ideas. As some people have told me tonight, it may have been more accurate to call this "OpenWidget" - though the press wouldn't have been as good. We've been waiting for data and identity portability - is this all we get?